Ailes compares Fox News to al Qaeda

June 6, 2007

Fox News chief Roger Ailes is still a little peeved about Democrats treating his partisan network as a Republican propaganda outlet. (via Cliff Schecter)

[Ailes] had some choice words for Democratic candidates who have decided not to debate on Fox.

“The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.”

That was followed by applause from the crowd which featured several News Corp. executives and journalists from Murdoch-owned papers — Richard Johnson, the Post’s Page Six editor, for one.

First, let’s not forget that it was Roger Ailes, not anyone on the left, who compared Fox News to terrorists.

Second, by attacking Dems, and spurring applause from Murdoch’s media lackeys, Ailes is pretty much proving the Dems’ point for them.

Third, Fox News really needs to get a grip on this hysteria about Dems avoiding one of the network’s debates. As TP noted, “Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly has compared people who oppose participating in Fox News’ presidential debates to Nazis, claiming they ‘lie, distort, defame, all the time’ using ‘propaganda techniques perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of information.’ Fellow Fox News anchor Mort Kondracke claimed they are ‘not about free speech’ and guilty of “junior grade Stalinism.'” This just isn’t healthy.

And fourth, for Ailes to suggest that Dems are afraid of the Republicans’ news network is just silly. He must know better.

It seems to be the only talking point the right has available for this story. Joan Vennochi parroted it the other day in the Boston Globe, writing, “If you can’t face the bad boys of Fox News, how can you face the bad boys of Iraq or Iran?”

I suspect Ailes and his like-minded allies are really just playing dumb here, anxious to goad their political enemies. No one, not even FNC execs, is this inane. Ailes, Vennochi, and others who argue that Dems are “afraid” of the GOP’s network must realize how foolish the argument is.

We’ve been through this, but in case there are any lingering doubts about the broader dynamic here, Digby explained it very well a couple of days ago.

What the Democrats are saying is that unlike George W. Bush they aren’t dumb enough to legitimize the enemy’s propaganda. By pretending that Fox is a news network instead of the official house organ of the Republican Party the Democrats would be doing what Bush has done with al Qaeda — behaving with such predictable idiocy that it inspires the other side’s recruiting.

Furthermore, it’s a waste of time. FOX is a partisan Republican network and the Democrats are trying to get Democratic primary votes (who do not and will not watch FOX for any reason.) They might as well be holding the debate in Dick Cheney’s office. The vast, vast majority of Fox’s audience are older, white, male right-wingers, hard core 28 percenters who would rather stick needles in their eyes than vote for a Democrat. It’s ridiculous to think Democrats have any chance of persuading the audience of a network whose most popular show stars a man who says this:

O’REILLY: OK, I think it’s a small part, but I think it’s there. On the other side, you have people who hate America, and they hate it because it’s run primarily by white, Christian men. Let me repeat that. America is run primarily by white, Christian men, and there is a segment of our population who hates that, despises that power structure. So they, under the guise of being compassionate, want to flood the country with foreign nationals, unlimited, unlimited, to change the complexion — pardon the pun — of America.

Congressional Black Caucus Institute, I sure hope you’re paying attention to all of this.

“The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.”

What does he know that we don’t know?
Is he privy to a plot?

  • CB…

    It deserves to be in bold:

    “Congressional Black Caucus Institute, I sure hope you’re paying attention to all of this.”

  • “The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.”

    I find this almost a Freudian slip into the mindset of your typical conservative and how they view confrontation. In their eyes, whenever you see an opponent you have to confront them immediately , regardless of circumstances. There’s no such thing as fighting a fight on your own terms, or strategic considerations – if you don’t accept a challenge immediately, you’re weak. This is exactly the sort of thinking that got us into Iraq in the first place – “There’s a bad man – get ‘im!”

    Sun Tzu acknowledged that most of winning a battle is in choosing a good place and time for the conflict – if there’s no upside to the battle, you don’t fight it. Period. The fact that, 2500 years later, the R’s can’t grasp this point says a lot about their intellectual capacity.

  • “Let me repeat that. America is run primarily by white, Christian men”

    I thought that white christian males were repressed. Isn’t that what I keep hearing? If so, how can repressed white christian males be running the country.

  • Well, one advantage to having Fox News is that one can avoid the maximum number of right-wing neocon bobbleheads just by avoiding one channel.

    What I am getting from Ailes, though, is a whiff of desperation to remain relevant as, increasingly, they have been marginalized. And rather than respond to the reasons why people are not taking them seriously, they just seem to turn up the volume and increase the pitch of their ever-wackier points of view.

  • I’m glad that the “fair and balanced” Fox is finally admitting that they shill for the Republicans. At least that’s some progress.

    Hey Roger… you’re an idiot, and your party is going to be HAMMERED in 2008.

    Bwahahahaha

  • “Let me repeat that. America is run primarily by white, Christian men, and there is a segment of our population who hates that, despises that power structure.”

    You’d better fucking believe that O’Reilly. And you know why I hate them? Because they are a bunch of narrow-minded, homophobic, misogynistic, fascistic, cowardly idiots.

  • Someone who is willing to self-flagelate themselves and their party to appear on FOX News could not face Al Qaeda.

    If you can’t stand up to Murdoch, how can you stand up to Bin Laden?

  • Well, they are similar. Both faux news and al qaida are filled with furry gasbags with holy war tendencies trying to coax the end times.

    The only difference is, Ailes can only DREAM of achieving bin Laden’s TV ratings.

  • “The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.” He means that’s the line they’ll parot on Faux every hour on the hour. Most likely every 1/2 hour until the next election. It’s coming!

  • Joan Vennochi parroted it the other day in the Boston Globe, writing, “If you can’t face the bad boys of Fox News, how can you face the bad boys of Iraq or Iran?”

    This comment is even more insane and stupid than Ailes’. “bad boys of Iraq or Iran?” — what, did Bin Laden play a little mailbox baseball or something? Cow-tipping?

    What a bunch of morons.

  • I agree with Anne (#7). There’s more than a hint of desperation from Faux News and the administration for which it serves. The noise and insane arguments are a sign of that desperation, but I sense that even the wingnuts’ hearts aren’t in it. That’s what George Bush has wrought on his party.

  • Yeah CBC, are you paying attention?? Fox thinks you all look alike (Conyers and Jefferson), oh hey, just must have run the wrong video clip.
    This upcoming “debate” has turned into using the participating candidates to smear those who refuse to take part.
    This is not about the issues or the CBC, it’s about taking a stand against a republican propaganda machine posing as a news outlet.
    If anything, it belittles the participants as candidates willing to cross the protest lines for publicity and only offering ammo to the opposition.
    It belittles the CBC for not recognizing the history of racism attributed to Fox and lending credibility to their racist “white christian men” agenda. Blacks are all just like the stadium Katrina Victims.
    Only “white” bread served here, but the butter courtesy of the CBC.

  • Everytime I read anything about Fox or any Murdoch owned piece of crap I remember that the great Mike Royko always called Murdoch ‘The Alien’. Mike’s nickname for Murdoch was not just about RM being a Aussie scumbag but also about whether asshat Murdoch is even a human. Is it too late to revoke his US citizenship and send him back?

  • “The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes.

    Question for the Repub candidates at their next debate:
    In your opinion, which of the terrorist cells is most effective, ie poses greatest danger to US: Fox News, the JFK Four, The Fort Dix Six or the Miami Eight?

  • Sun Tzu acknowledged that most of winning a battle is in choosing a good place and time for the conflict – if there’s no upside to the battle, you don’t fight it. Period. The fact that, 2500 years later, the R’s can’t grasp this point says a lot about their intellectual capacity.

    Let’s remember that the last war the Republicans fought and won on their own was the Spanish-American “War.” Our first avowedly, unabashedly imperialist enterprise.

  • One of Goebbel’s tricks that Ailles and Murdoch use is to accuse your enemy of doing exactly what you do, and being exactly what you are.

    The leaders of the Republican Party and cheap thugs like Murdoch and Ailles, and their pathetic lapdog media whores, are the real Nazis.

    Some of these people may well hang if future investigations into the Irag scam and 9/11 prove serious criminal behavior was involved. These investigations are inevitable, and are the main reason why the current administration would like to declare martial law over some faked terrorist incident and establish a dictatorship. i.e., bye. bye, America.

    Republicans look terrified of this possibility and they should be.

    But We The People believe Justice will rule and it will.

  • Please, please don’t send Murdoch back to Australia it took years to get rid of him put him and the shrub on a very slow boat to China prefably one with holes in it.

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